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 ANTZ. Remember Woody Allen? Well, he's back--in ant form!
Woody plays himself, only with more chitin, in this perverted
children's story about an ant who is emotionally unable to support
his colony's collective consciousness. He accidentally becomes
a war hero, kidnaps a princess, leads a Marxist revolution, and
has a fulfilling relationship with his wife's adopted daughter.
Well, three out of those four, anyway. I'm not really sure at
what audience this movie is aimed, since its "G" rating
and the fact that it's animated seems to direct it toward kids;
but Allen, as Z the Ant, makes comments like "Just for that
I'm no longer including you in my wild, erotic fantasies,"
which I'm not sure is kid stuff. (I haven't been a kid for a while
so I could be off-base here). Still, this is the most Woody Allen-like
Woody Allen film since Manhattan, so maybe it's for that
next generation of self-obsessed neurotic pre-schoolers who've
been looking for a voice for their generation. Still, there's
something a bit unnerving about this project--do we want Woody
Allen attracting underage fans? --DiGiovanna
APT PUPIL. If ever we needed proof that no one truly knows
how to beat an idea into the ground until it's mashed, bloody
and dead like Stephen King, proof has arrived. The master of overstatement
is back, this time with a lovable-Nazi-in-the-suburbs story. How
bad is the Nazi? He's so bad he puts kitty cats in the oven. King,
who wrote the novella on which the movie is based, should not
bear the blame for this alone; screenwriter Brandon Boyce and
director Bryan Singer (of The Usual Suspects fame) have
truly wasted their energies on this gorgeously shot, utterly boring
film. Ian McKellen makes a go of it as an aged Nazi officer living
quietly in an American suburb, but this role is simply too silly
for his talents. Teen heart throb Brad Renfro is eerily convincing
as the self-satisfied high-school senior who is at first fascinated
and ultimately corrupted by the older man, though he's so unlikable
it's hard to care. The first hour of this movie consists of Renfro
and McKellen sitting around talking about war crimes--a sort of
My Dinner With A Nazi. Then the long knives and sledgehammers
come out...but it's too late, much too late. --Richter
BELOVED. A Hollywood film with a female protagonist is
rare enough, so a thought-provoking Disney movie with a black
woman as the central character is certainly even more unexpected.
Based on the Toni Morrison novel and directed by Jonathan Demme
(The Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild), Beloved
tells the story of Sethe (Oprah Winfrey), a former slave confronted
with the ghost of her dead child. Narrative devices such as flashbacks
and dream sequences help to maintain interest during the three-hour
running time, but the film is most notable, and enjoyable, for
the use of stylistic devices to reflect the psychology of its
characters. The set of the house, where Sethe lives with her daughter
Denver (Kimberly Elise) and, at times, with Paul D (Danny Glover)
and Beloved (Thandie Newton), is claustrophobic and worn, and
provides an important touchstone for this barely functioning family.
The variety of filmstocks as well as camera and soundtrack manipulations
also help convey the disjointed and uneasy existence of the characters.
Winfrey is distracting at times because, well, she's Oprah; but
Elise gives an excellent performance as her lonely dependent.--Higgins
FIRELIGHT. This hilarious sci-fi/comedy/period romance
is what PBS will look like in the future, when all the other channels
offer nothing but pornography and live executions. Andrea Dworkin
would love the plot: It's about a woman (Sophie Marceau) who contracts
out as a prostitute/baby machine for an anonymous rich man, with
whom she instantly falls in love. After their three-day affair
ends, she's never to see him again, though she must surrender
the child they have conceived to his agents. Seven years later,
she inexplicably becomes her own daughter's governess. I really
cannot express how funny this film is: When Marceau finds her
daughter, the daughter says, "Why did you give me away?";
and Marceau replies "I didn't--I sold you." I haven't
heard so many guffaws in a movie theater since the death scene
in Rocky IV. --DiGiovanna
HOLY MAN. Eddie Murphy must be blessed, because there's
no other way to explain his recurring leading roles. This is the
Oh God sequel you never expected nor wanted, with Murphy
getting in touch with his spiritual side as G, a pilgrim who befriends
infomercial director Ricky (Jeff Goldblum) and uses his vast powers
to aid Ricky's faltering career and love life. The really tough
choices, of course, Ricky must make for himself--such as whether
to endure a relationship with fashion-challenged Kate (Kelly Preston)
or set up situations to be naked with G. I don't want to give
away the ending, so let's just say that most major religious groups
won't be offended. --Higgins
THE IMPOSTORS. Stanley Tucci wrote and directed this delightful
light comedy, set aboard a sumptuous 1930s luxury boat. Tucci
and Oliver Platt play Arthur and Maurice, an inseparable skinny/fat
pair of actors who're nothing if not dedicated to their craft
and each other. Though not very successful on stage, the two hold
the philosophy that anytime is a good time to act--in a pastry
shop, a sidewalk café, you name it. Such shenanigans of
course get them into trouble, and before you know it they've inadvertently
stowed away on a boat. Such ridiculous comic tropes actually work,
because the script is smart; and the ensemble cast, including
Isabella Rossellini, Steve Buscemi, and Lili Taylor, seems to
be having a ball. --Richter
NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY. Try "night at the torture chamber."
First they tried to break me with that damn Haddaway song, then
it was the breast montage. But I was strong. I lasted through
the way-dumbed-down Swingers plot, lame references to the
over-referenced '70s, overused jokes, and the ass montage.
Other viewers must be similarly tenacious, because Night has
lasted longer in the theaters than It's Pat! (Granted,
one day at the box office isn't tough to beat.) Short Doug (Chris
Kattan) and tall Steve (Will Ferrell) are the clubbing brothers
from Saturday Night Live who (this is the clever part)
don't realize how annoying they are. They have a dream and...yawn...achieve
it by the film's end. And they get laid (maybe that's the
clever part). We're graced with brief appearances by Loni Anderson
and Richard Grieco, but they were much too little, too late. What
finally broke me was the running time--almost two hours. It's
really all about endurance.--Higgins
SOLDIER. Marx once said that the proletariat must "safeguard
itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them
all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment."
Wow, he could have written the script for Soldier, wherein
a team of super-soldiers are replaced by newer, even superer soldiers,
who go on an evil killing spree (as opposed to the good killing
sprees of the original super-soldiers). See, while the original
super-soldiers are nearly soulless automatons trained from birth
only to blow things up and destroy human life, the newer, superer-soldiers
are almost entirely soulless automatons, trained from before
birth only to blow things up and destroy human life. Kurt Russell
plays one of the original super-soldiers, who, while speaking
only 62 words during the course of the film (Entertainment
Weekly counted 69 words, but I stand by my figures), shows
himself to be nearly almost human-like in defending some poor
interstellar settlers against the superer-soldiers. The superer-soldiers,
see, are all bald, whereas the super-soldiers have some hair.
So they're, like, our friends. Caution: This film contains some
scenes of hugging. --DiGiovanna
URBAN LEGEND. Did you ever hear the one about the Hollywood
movie that was actually satisfying? A friend of my second cousin's
friend heard about it, and it's true! Several of those scary stories
you believed as a kid are compiled here for a by-the-book but
nonetheless clever horror film. The tortured female this time
is Natalie (Alicia Witt), a coed with a past that includes the
death of a teenage boy because of her enactment of an urban legend.
Well, somebody knows what she did last summer and is playing out
other terrifying tales on her friends, such as hiding in the back
of a car with an ax and killing her roommate while she sleeps
in the next bed. Robert Englund (best known as Freddy Krueger
from the Nightmare on Elm Street series) plays one of the
main suspects, Professor Wexler, and doe-eyed Jared Leto and clean-skinned
Rebecca Gayheart offer lots of frightening cuteness. --Higgins
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. Hamlet fretted over what dreams may
come when we shuffle off this mortal coil, but Robin Williams
doesn't have to worry, because he's already been to heaven. And
Annabella Sciorra has been to hell. This well-intentioned but
stupid mutation of the Orpheus story (based on the novel by Richard
Matheson) concerns a very happy couple who like each other a lot.
In fact, Christy and Annie Nielsen (Williams and Sciorra) are
soulmates. They have it all: an upscale life, a nanny, expensive
objects, until their kids die in a car crash, and then Christy
dies in one, too. Eventually he ends up in heaven, and his wife
ends up in hell--Max Von Sydow plays the shrink-turned-ferryman
who navigates between the two. The special effects are pretty
darn nifty here, and as a welcome relief, they don't involve any
shooting or blowing up. But the freshman-level philosophy ("You
know who you are because you think you do!" ) and tons of
painful psychoblather shove this movie into the fiery depths of
banality. There is one good part: We get to hear Robin Williams
called "Christy" for two hours, evoking images of a
freshly scrubbed teenage girl in a tennis skirt. --Richter
WILDE. As in Oscar. This is another film by Brian Gilbert,
who brought us Tom and Viv and seems quite fascinated by
the secret bodice-ripping lives of literary figures. Though Wilde's
life is anything but secret. The usual high points are visited
here--his marriage, the discovery of his "true nature"
with the help of a young relative, his Platonic love for boys,
in particular Lord Alfred Douglas (Jude Law), who led to his downfall
and eventual imprisonment for immoral behavior or debauchery or
whatever they called sex between men then. As always when visiting
the 19th century, there's lots of transgressive sex. Here we have
"buggering" in soft focus and some hot, deep, man-on-boy
mouth kissing. Nothing else stands out in this movie; I found
Stephen Fry's Wilde a bit too trembly and vulnerable for the great
wit who loved irony. Still, Wilde will do for evenings
when Masterpiece Theater has been preempted; though you have to
agree, if it were really good, they would have thought of a better
title. --Richter
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